


First Light

by BasilOuija



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Canon Compliant, Double Entendre, Gen, Introspection, Mid-Canon, One Shot, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 05:32:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18584776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasilOuija/pseuds/BasilOuija
Summary: After being brought back from the brink of death, Midna thinks back on the time she's spent in the world of light, and the sacrifices its denizens have made for her.





	First Light

A dark, clouded sky blanketed Hyrule like a thick veil of mourning.

The sleeping shape of a wolf nestled itself against the base of a small oak tree dotted against the landscape; beside him was an imp, who regarded the blackness of the night knowingly, contemplatively.

 _Fitting_ , the imp thought sadly,  _considering the circumstances_.

Midna was restless, and understandably so: and endless number of terrible things had transpired within the last twelve hours  _alone_ , as if being cursed and made to watch her people transformed into hideous monsters weren’t bad enough.  The Fused Shadows she and Link had worked tirelessly to obtain were  _gone_.  Link was a beast again, and this time, maybe for good—though she hoped against hope that the fabled blade of evil’s bane would truly be able to set him free.  And then, of course…

“ _No! Link!  STOP HER!_ ”

The pair had traveled no further outside of Castle Town than it had taken them to find shelter from the rain beneath this very oak, though the rain had stopped some time ago, its only remnants now the barely audible  _pit-pat_ ,  _pit-pat_  of water droplets falling from the branches above them to the ground beneath.  Beast or not, the hero had been in desperate need of a rest, Zant’s surprise attack having robbed him of his chance for respite—and so it was agreed: they would continue their journey to Faron Woods and the Sacred Grove that lie within at first light, and spend the remainder of the night getting what precious sleep they could.

No sooner had they decided upon this had the wolf’s breathing become rhythmic and slow—but Midna, unable to sleep, unable to so much as  _move_ , simply hovered above the ground as she was often wont to do and thought.

“ _Link… You can… You can get to the woods…on your own, right?_ ”

She had been very sick.  No, that wasn’t quite right—she had been  _dying_.  Her people, the Twili, were a race of shadows, unable to mingle with the world of light—and Zant had subjected her to it at full force.  Much of what came after was nothing more than a hazy blur to her now; in her desperation, she remembered imploring Link to make for Hyrule Castle, for the princess there surely had the answer that could save him, and in so doing, the very world.  She remembered her consciousness fading in and out, her strength dwindling away as they ran—across the plains of Hyrule, amidst the crowded city streets, through the castle’s sewers and atop its rooftops.  She remembered the last of her strength giving out as she fell from her canine companion’s back, collapsing to the hard stone floor below, and she remembered the princess of light, clasping her small, pointed hand in her own, the other woman’s skin soft and cool to the touch.

Above all else, she remembered the burning, white hot intensity of a thousand blinding suns tearing her very core to pieces, and a blood-curdling scream she could only assume had been her own.

Midna had resigned herself to death.  For so long, all she had wanted was to return home, to her people—for things to go back to the way they were before Zant.  She hadn’t cared if the world of light and its denizens fell to perpetual twilight, but she could see now how foolish this sentiment was—how the fate of their two worlds, though leagues apart, were inextricably intertwined.  If Link could defeat Zant, as the Light Spirits so often claimed he was destined to, her world, too, would be saved—and her people along with it.  And now, more than ever, Midna realized that that was all she  _really_  wanted: for her people to be safe.

Indeed, in the grand scheme of things, her death was inconsequential—nothing more than a mere bump in the road.  The Twili would be without their ruler, but they were a strong-hearted folk.  They would do just fine.

“ _Midna… I believe I understand now just who and what you are…_ ”

Zelda had spoken these words after Midna had implored her to tell Link where to find the Mirror of Twilight, the only link the goddesses had left between the world of light and the Twilight Realm.  It was an artifact whose very knowledge of existence was passed down through the royal family of the Twili—it was not surprising that Zelda could ascertain her identity.  But what came next was very surprising indeed.

Had she felt personally responsible for the oppression and imprisonment of her people, Midna wondered?  Was her decision some self-serving way of reconciling this guilt she bore, and nothing more? Or had she felt she had no choice, being unable to leave her tower—and at least in this way, she could at last lend aid to the hero whose duty it was to save her kingdom from the threat of darkness?

Had she simply saved her out of the kindness of her heart?

Midna did not know.

And no matter how much she pondered, the reality of the matter was that she likely would never know, and the truth would not change the facts: that Princess Zelda had sacrificed herself, given up her life and light and imprinted it on her soul to bring her from death’s doorstep.

Midna hadn’t a clue how long she had been hovering there, mind weighing with the worries and woes of someone well beyond her years, but she found herself frequently looking down at her hands in the darkness—clenching them, unclenching them, curling them into one another.  They were the clawed hands of a small and hideous imp, but they were hers nonetheless.  

She was still alive.

Did she deserve to still be here, after how selfishly she had chased after the Fused Shadows, putting her life and her needs above all else?

If the Twili were beings of shadow, and she could now freely walk within the light…what exactly did that make her?

When did some small part of her start caring about the fate of the world of light—not just for her people’s sake, but for the sake of the light dwellers who inhabited it?

Could Zelda be saved?

The impish princess thought and thought, her mind going in circles, the world and its passage of time lost on her.  Gradually, the black curtain of clouds that had shrouded the landscape around her gave way to the stars above, and before long the stars gave way to morning—and it was only when the first signs of Hyrule’s sun began making itself evident on the eastern horizon that Midna was briskly, violently shaken from her stupor as a pronounced, native fear gripped her psyche.

In an instant, she’d melded herself into the shadows at the base of the tree, letting out the tiniest yelp as she did so.  Her breathing became erratic; she could  _see_  the spirit Lanayru in her mind’s eye,  _feel_  the intense, harsh light that had burned her alive and threatened to erase her from existence not a day prior.  She tried to take comfort in the familiarity of the shadows surrounding her, in the knowledge that no light could reach her here—and as she lie still, heart pounding, terror gripping her soul like a ReDead, one single, hard truth gingerly made its way to the forefront of her mind:

She had no reason to be afraid.

As a young Twili, she had often been told stories of the world of light: how its denizens had long ago sentenced her ancestors to an eternity of oblivion in the realm of twilight, forbidden from stepping into the rich and bountiful world of light forevermore.   Midna had always done her best not to think too highly of these stories—after all, she loved her realm and its perpetual twilight, and what good would come of longing for a world she would never be able to reach?  A world whose very sky could burn her—along with all of her people?  What kind of ruler would that make her?

And yet…there was some small part of her that she’d never been able to blot out entirely, some deep-rooted, childlike sense of wonder manifesting itself as a small, tiresome voice in the back of her head that often simply asked:  _what if_?

_What if…_

Midna took several moments, focusing on the slowing of her breathing and the calming of her mind.  

She would have given anything for the circumstances to be different—of that she was absolutely certain—but the past was the past.  Here she was, right here, right now, and nothing was going to change that.

When at last the remnants of her terror had released her, Midna braced herself…and stepped into the light.

The sun had barely poked its way above the distant hills, much of the sky to the west still clinging to the deep indigo of night.  She found herself sitting on the ground,  _actually_  sitting, allowing the sensation of the damp, cool earth and the lush, prickly grass to wash over her, though her single visible eye remained fixed on the eastern hills—on the rising sun.

The following moments would be etched into the Twili’s mind for ages to come.

Compared to the twilight she knew and loved… No, there was simply no comparing the two.  The twilight had always been her home, and she had always treasured it dearly—as she always would.  But as the Hyrulean sun rose further and further above the horizon, Midna knew that she was bearing witness to something in a league of its own entirely: different from the beauty of her beloved twilight, yes…but a beauty nonetheless.

She sat there, wide-eyed and awestruck, watching as the sun slowly but surely made its way across the sky, until it had risen high enough for its rays to reach her.  She gasped slightly when she realized that she was casting a shadow—as a shadow, she’d never had one of her own before—but it was quickly forgotten when she realized she was feeling something else, something  _new_ , as the light of the closest star enveloped the land, and her along with it.

_It’s…_

Midna closed her eyes, the burning,  lethal encounter she’d had with Lanayru far from her mind now.  She reached a pointed hand to her face and lay it across her cheek—as if to verify that she was really feeling what she was feeling.

_…warm…_

So it was.

Midna continued to watch the sunrise, mesmerized, until the light became too bright for even her new eye to handle, and it was as if a spell had been lifted.  It was then that she recalled the agreement she had made with her partner the night before—or had it been earlier that morning?—and she turned on the ground to face him, moving to stir him from his slumber.

“Link?” she said quietly, reaching for his torso.  “The sun’s up.  It’s time to…”

Something else—something she hadn’t considered before—made her trail off mid-sentence.  Her hand hovered mere inches away from his fur coat, which still rose and fell rhythmically, peacefully.

What was strange about this?

Truthfully, Link had had every reason to be positively spent; Zant’s attack had come immediately after a long and arduous underwater battle with a giant, eel-like monster at the bottom of Lake Hylia—this was the first time he had found a moment’s rest since before that battle had taken place, which alone had surely left him worn out.  Yet despite his fatigue, he had run on and on through the night at Midna’s behest, not stopping for so much as a snack before reaching the tower in the castle where Zelda resided.  She had assumed that this was due to his eagerness to return to his human form—after all, it  _was_  the reason she had insisted they go there—and yet…

Here he was, still very much a wolf, deep in a much-needed sleep.  After all he’d been through—after how she’d treated him for so long—he had stopped to rest only after she…

_You…idiot._

As realization dawned on her much like the new day, a new kind of warmth made its way into Midna’s heart—and for the first time since Zant’s attack, a shadow of a smile crept across her face.  Zelda had not been the only light dweller who had made sacrifices for her sake, and she knew that now; whether or not she deserved their kindness was another matter entirely, but right this moment, all she could do was accept it.

All she could do was accept it.

Pulling her hand away from her sleeping companion, Midna turned back to face the ever-brightening sky.  The Master Sword, Zant…the world could wait just a few hours longer.  Its hero still needed his rest.

 _Zelda_ , she thought,  _I wish more than anything that I could trade places with you…but your sacrifice will not be in vain.  I swear it._

A wave of fatigue suddenly crashed into her like a ship on a stormy night.  She laid her head back, and next thing she knew she curling into the shape of her four-legged friend.  His fur was soft—soft and warm, like the sunlight at her back.

And slowly—like the morning sun arcing its way above the horizon—she drifted off to sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> First of all: thanks for reading! This is the first fic I've ever actually managed to finish, so as I'm sure you can imagine I'm anxious to know how it will be received. I've recently rediscovered my love for Twilight Princess, and I had a very distinct, very powerful image of Midna stepping into sunlight for the very first time that I simply had to get out of my system. I look forward to writing more for this game in the future!
> 
> (( This was originally posted on my Twilight Princess blog: midzelink.tumblr.com ))


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